‘Forgotten Island’ Is a Faithful Tapestry of Philippine Folklore

There is a bittersweet texture to the way Filipinos remember. In a culture stitched together by diaspora, shifting regimes, and fading murmurs of oral history, memory becomes our most sacred form of rebellion. Hollywood’s DreamWorks Animation film made Forgotten Island as its 50^th feature, introducing a star-studded Filipino voice cast and a powerful storyline about Philippine mythology. In case you have been living under a rock, the film features Filipino actress Liza Soberano, Filipino-American musician H.E.R., and Broadway legend and recent Walk of Fame recipient Lea Salonga as the marquee Filipinas bearing the flag. The piece of art also simultaneously stirs evocative monuments to this collective psyche. This cinematic space where familial and historical narratives collide with universal themes of friendship brings a fleeting nostalgia of childhood summers, rural superstitions, and ancestral ties into something significant.  

The colorful and charismatic characters weave the archipelagic nation’s paradox, shown with distinct Filipino language, food, and songs. We are a nation divided by water but bound entirely by the folklore that rises from it. The rural landscapes are living repositories of grief, joy, endurance, and ambition. The project strips away the postcard versions of Philippine tourism to unearth the visceral grit of our true national resilience. 

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Forgotten Island achieves the rarest of feats in contemporary storytelling. The Filipino way of saying 'may puso ang kwento,' which basically means there is always a heart to a story or an overarching thesis. This all boils down to a brilliant celebration of memories, as it holds up a mirror to the universal human condition of our specific heartbreaks, younger recollections, and our distinct ways of loving, which are profoundly transcendent. It is a sleek way of preserving culture, asserting that the stories born in the quiet corners of our islands have always possessed the gravity of captivating the rest of the world.  

This cultural representation is fueled by an unprecedented reckoning on the global stage as the movie garnered significant praise, where the world-class caliber of Filipino creatives is no longer Hollywood’s best-kept secret but its loudest revelation. From visionary directors and meticulous cinematographers to actors who command the screen with strong magnitude and storytellers who redefine cinematic excellence. Filipino talent is given the canvas it deserves and illuminates the international stage with a brilliance that uses experiences uniquely our own. 

Dr. Carl Jung, although not an anthropologist, was a prominent analytical psychologist who used ethnography in cross-cultural studies. He believed that myths, symbols, and rituals from various societies proved the existence of universal and shared layers in all humans. Being said, our mythical creatures like the manananggal, dwende, kapre, and others were always universal because they were never just about geography. They were about human nature.

The Philippine archipelago gave us a distinct local face in our folkloric tales, with shared fears and wonders haunting the human psyche since ancient times. 

As an anthropologist myself, spending years translating the unseen spirits as the fabric of Philippine culture, watching Forgotten Island feels like a filmic escape and more like a vivid homecoming. In some of my TV interviews in Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho (KMJS) anchored academic poise while dissecting the Filipino folklore, grounding the supernatural in historical reality as I studied the social and cultural anatomy of these legends. Yet, watching the fictitious island of Nakali (nakalimutan or nakalimot) unfold on the silver screen, I find myself completely disarmed. 

To witness the cinematic landscapes of Forgotten Island is to see the shrouded mystique of Biliran or Siquijor finally enlivened in animation, unshackled from the limitations of oral and written histories. Aside from Jo and Raissa, the story resurrects profound amazement as the dual nature of our imagination is brought to animated life. The screen breathes with the bioluminescent flora of a Visayan paradise, the hypnotic sway of ancient trees, and a spirit that glows with haunting elegance.

Beyond Netflix and Hollywood studios, the rich fabric of Philippine folklore has carved a distinct path into the U.S. through indie cinema and the international festival circuit. Films like the Sundance folk-horror darling In My Mother’s Skin (2023) and Mikhail Red’s occult thriller Lilim (2025) have captivated U.S. audiences at major festivals by exploring dark forest spirits and animist rituals. While Yam Laranas’ The Road (2011) made history as the first all-Filipino feature to secure a wide U.S. commercial theatrical release using the lore of generational ghosts (multo). Even cult American indies like 1994’s Aswang have gotten in on the fetus-eating crime, creating from the Visayan islands straight into the rural woods of Wisconsin. 

But Netflix’s Trese served as the definitive catalyst that brought provincial legends and translated them into modern language that global audiences could instantly digest. The graphic animation also voiced over by Filipino celebrities blew the doors open, proving to international executives that Philippine folklore possessed global attention and paving the path for major Hollywood blockbusters. 

In the end, Forgotten Island stands as a memorable movie bringing untapped creative juices of our ancestors to a global audience, with the cast and crew sharing Filipino heritage themselves. By taking the olden myths across the archipelago and wrapping them in the red carpet of Hollywood, the film honors Filipino imagination where the breathtakingly beautiful and terrifyingly instinctive seamlessly coexist. It serves as an enduring proof that our native stories possess poetic license immortalized in modern cinemas. 

Dr. Chester B. Cabalza is the founding president of the International Development and Security Cooperation (IDSC), a Manila-based think tank. 

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